94 MARINE AND FRESHWATER FISHES 



his deeply excavated bridal abode. As will have been antici- 

 pated, the Black Sea-Bream takes its name with reference 

 to the sooty hue it assumes after death, its synonym of the 

 " Old Wife " being a local title by which it is known to 

 south coast fishermen. Among the remaining members 

 of the Sea-Bream family, upon which limited space 

 precludes extension, have to be mentioned the Couches 

 Sea-Bream (Pagrus vulgaris\ No. II ; the Gilt-head 

 (Pagrus auratus], No. 12 ; the common or Red Sea-Bream 

 (Pagellus centrodontus), No. 13 ; the Axillary Sea-Bream 

 (Pagellus Owenii), No. 1 5 ; and the Acarne (Pagellus acarne), 

 No. 1 6. The majority of these will be found included 

 among the spirit-preserved series in the Day Collection. 

 None of the Sea-Breams are held in high estimation as food- 

 fish, their flesh being coarse and insipid. A length of from 

 twelve to eighteen inches with a weight of five or six pounds 

 represents the average size attained by the adults of the 

 largest members of the Sea-Bream family, such as Nos. 9 and 

 13, taken on the British coast. The cast of an unusually fine 

 example of the latter form, Pagellus centrodontus, having a 

 length of twenty-two inches, and which weighed, when fresh 

 from the sea, no less than eight pounds, is on view in the 

 Buckland Museum. 



FAMILY IV. SCORPION FISHES (Scorpcenida). 



Body more or less compressed ; the cleft of the mouth 

 lateral or sub-vertical, furnished with feeble villiform teeth ; 

 eyes usually approximated towards the top of the head ; a 

 greater or less number of the head bones, and especially 

 those of the pre-operculum, armed with defensive spines, 

 dorsal fin single, its larger anterior moiety spinous ; branch!- 



